I arrived at the Chew Valley 10k with a completely flat tyre, which explained some of the odd handling issues en route. No time to deal with it before heading off to registration though and attaching my number to my club vest (I would have worn my crop top if the number had been small enough to fit it on). Dr Phil Hammond set us off and it was out along the country roads.

At one stage a herd of cows in a field next to the road decided to get in on the action, running parallel to us, but luckily they stayed in their field. There’s a big hill at  halfway and I decided to conserve energy by walking up part of it, saving myself for the flat at the top (and additional small climbs), and then the downhill. This strategy saw me passing lots of people who passed me up the hill and got me home in 47:15. According to the provisional results this put me 7th in my age category and 101st out of 570, but they are definitely iffy as they have Jane and Rob Colman the wrong way round in the times.

A very kind runner I was chatting to on the way back to the school from the finish then helped me (as in did it all himself) change my flat tyre out for my spare so that I could get home without involving the AA. I happened to be passing a Kwik Fit on the way home and saw they had 25% off Goodyear tyres, so popped in and got a new one, job done.

This race topped off a week that saw me run 73km (just over 45 miles), the furthest I have run in a week. A good start to my marathon training. It will be a little lower next week as I don’t want to tire myself out for the Cotswold Way relay on Saturday, but will be increasing gradually week on week now as I head towards October.

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UPDATE: The have corrected the results (people with the same surname got the wrong timing chips) and I officially finished 100th out of 568 and was 4th in my age category.